Exciting news for all of you anime fans who are iPhone/iPod touch (and soon to be iPad) owners. Have you ever wanted to watch your favorite streaming anime site Crunchyroll on your iDevice? Well now you can, because there’s an app for that! Crunchyroll has recently released their iPhone and iPod touch app, available for free in the iTunes App Store. It will let you watch any of the content that you would normally be able to watch on Crunchyroll, including premium content if you login to the app with your Crunchyroll account. Currently it only streams over WiFi; however with Apple and AT&T’s recent change of policy that now allows 3G access for the SlingPlayer and Skype apps, this may change. And – here’s the part that’s good news for those of you planning on getting an iPad — they are planning on upgrading their app to work natively on the iPad and take advantage of its ginormous screen size (and other nifty features)!

To commemorate this event. Crunchyroll is sponsoring a contest wherein one lucky winner anywhere in the world (you just have to be able to receive a package by mail) can win their very own 16 GB WiFi iPad! The only requirements are that you must: (A) sign up for a Crunchyroll account, (B) become a Premium member (Since you get a free two-week trial as a Premium member, tecnically there is no purchase necessary – just make sure that your trial status doesn’t expire before the contest ends. But at only $6.95/month or $60/year, a premium membership is quite reasonable if you ask me); and (C) become a fan of their Facebook page. The contest ends on March 31, at which point the lucky winner will be announced.

A long time ago, on a Crunchyroll forum post far, far away, I once opined on the awesomeness that would result if CR made their very own iPhone app. I was rather perfunctorily brushed off with an “ehh… not likely to happen.” They must have been planning this all along… those sneaky bastards!! 😉